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Saturday, 8 October 2011

On the mess that is #catgate

You've probably seen this on twitter in the news or otherwise in the greater images that remind us what a sewer our politics are. But for those who don't:

Theresa May, our Home Secretary and Equalities Minister gave a speech trying to condemn and scrap the Human Rights Act (yes, our Home Secretary and Equalities Minister wants to scrap the Human Rights act. This should probably tell you a lot about her.) In this speech she said “The illegal immigrant who cannot be deported because – and I am not making this up – he had a pet cat.”

Except of course she did make it up, or someone did, because it's grossly untrue. Utterly utterly untrue. In no way, shape or form can you remain in this country when facing deportation because you have a pet cat. She was talking bullshit.

Let us be clear here on the immigration policy and how it relates to the right to family life – if you are in a long term (over 4 years) relationship with someone in the UK then they cannot deport you because they are splitting up your family. If you have been living here with a partner for 4 years, deporting you is cruel and wrong and certainly violates your right to a family life.

In this case it was further important because the British partner could not go to Bolivia because his father had a chronic illness for which he was a caregiver. Yes the cat was listed among a gazillion other things to prove that they ACTUALLY had a 4 year relationship.

The case was thrown out because the Border Agency had completely failed to follow their own policy with regards to 4 year relationships

And yes, it is bemusing that they Border Agency completely scrapped their own immigration policy on this one, which is why the court stepped in in the first place because it was completely ignored. I cannot think why these 2 men had the policy over their 4 year relationship ignored, why these 2 men had standard procedure overturned in an attempt to split up their family, why these 2 men had to go to such lengths to protect their family. Oh, wait. I think I have an idea, can you guess?

This all means that Theresa May is either:
1)So ignorant and incompetent and employs such ignorant, clueless staffers that they're willing to run with this story without any fact checking AND is so unaware of our laws that she couldn't spot the bullshit from a 100 miles away as any half way competent MP should be able to

2)So utterly xenophobic and so malicious and so dedicated to shredding human rights and scapegoat and attack immigrants that she didn't care that it was a complete lie

3)Even more xenophobic and hateful that she and her staff deliberately made it up for the sake of misinformation and demonising immigrants - appealing to people's hatred and prejudice for support

Regardless of which of these is true, she is a vile, cruel excuse for a human being and totally unfit to fill the post she holds. But the damage has been done – the newspapers, the usual suspects are already running with the story despite her being debunked repeatedly, including by the Judicial Communications Office. Theresa May has made no real effort to admit that she's a liar or retract her lies. In fact she regrets nothing – she's proud of her lies. So now we have columnists and papers spreading their usual bile and misinformation.